Could Trudeau and Merkel work together in the Trump era?

When outgoing U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was in Ottawa last month, he praised Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the world’s two last liberal champions. But it’s not clear how Trudeau and Merkel could strengthen their collaboration, said David Bosold, professor and managing director of the Graduate School of North American studies at Freie Universität in Berlin.

“As far as bilateral relations, there are a lot of things happening at the level of R&D exchange, university and industry co-operation,” he said. “When it comes to bilateral initiatives that would have a broader impact on North America or the world, I don’t see that the two countries have the necessary weight or momentum, and how could they generate that?”

Bosold quoted Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s mouse-and-elephant metaphor for the Canada/U.S. diplomatic relationship and suggested U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy will have a significant impact on both Germany and Canada.

In interviews with The Times of London and the German newspaper Bild, Trump criticized Angela Merkel’s open-door policy on refugees and Germany’s car manufacturing industry. He also described NATO as “obsolete”, raising concerns among European leaders.

After a Monday meeting with Jen Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Trump’s comment has caused “confusion and anxiety” in NATO and EU.

Uncertainty over Trump’s foreign policy is running high. A few days ago, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, James Mattis, defended the importance of NATO during his confirmation hearings.

The head of House of Commons foreign affairs committee, Liberal MP Bob Nault, told the Canadian Press Canada will have to contribute more to NATO if the U.S. follows through with Trump’s comments on withdrawing from the alliance.

“For Canada and Germany, (the biggest tests) are really the G20 meeting this year in Hamburg and the G7 summit in Canada next year that will allow them to come up with an agenda where they will be able to see what Trump is willing to do on the international stage and try to rearrange and recalibrate relations with Russia, which is important from Ukraine to Syria, and to stabilize Turkey,” he adds.

But Bosold said he believes Germany and Canada have an advantage compared to other countries because “Trudeau and Merkel, at least to my knowledge, have done something remarkably positive that is they haven’t really commented on Trump during the election campaign, whereas others thought that Trump would never stand a chance of winning and heavily criticized him.

“In that sense Trudeau and Merkel both said that they think it may become more difficult to deal with the U.S. than with the Obama administration, but at least they stated that they are open to discuss any collaboration or bilateral relations with the Trump administration.”

Germany is interested in learning from Canada’s experience with immigration, from managing influxes of migrants to integrating new populations, said Bosold.

“German politicians are very interested in the way Canada actually manages to integrate and ensure school performances of Canadian immigrants kids because Germany is not nearly as good,” he said. “Germans also have a high interest in reforming their immigration policy and having a proper immigration law because, so far, Germany doesn’t have a proper one. So there’s interest in a point system.”

The SPD, Germany’s center-left party, proposed a draft of an immigration law based on the Canadian model in November. The country faces a declining population; as in Canada, Germany fertility rate is lower than the replacement rate and projections for the workforce are grim. However, Germany’s immigration policy needs to be formulated within the larger framework of the European Union’s own policies.

Immigration has become a hotly-debated topic in Germany since the country welcomed more than a million migrants in 2015. And Angela Merkel’s liberal government could be at risk over the issue when Germany heads into federal elections in the fall.

“You’d think that since a politician pursues a certain policy, automatically a big majority of the population stand behind those policies and of course that’s not the case if you look at Germany and the regional elections,” said Bosold. “Angela Merkel has and is still being heavily criticized for her decisions.”

In September 2016, a survey by pollster Infratest dimap showed 45 per cent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the job Merkel is doing — the lowest number since 2011. As of January, the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), a right-wing nationalist party, is coming in third, according to pollster Infratest dimap.

The AfD succeeded in getting MPs elected in nine of Germany’s 16 state parliaments after only three years as a party. It was founded as an anti-euro party challenging the eurozone bailouts, especially of Greece in 2013, but has since been focusing on immigration and identity issues.

But Bosold is not particularly worried about AfD at the federal level. “I don’t see any chance for the AfD to win an absolute majority (during the federal elections in the fall) and otherwise, they’d need to find a coalition partner and even the most conservative party, the Bavarian counterpart of Angela Merkel’s party, has stated they wouldn’t form a coalition with the AfD.”

Bosold said he is “cautiously optimistic” about the future for Germany: “There will be some sort of other more or less liberal but definitely highly democratic coalition government in Germany after the elections.”

While Biden hailed Trudeau and Merkel as the last liberal leaders standing, Bosold said we shouldn’t forget about other “smaller” liberal countries such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Austria.

He still notes that right-wing populist parties are nevertheless gaining traction in these places. The Netherlands is preparing for a general election in March 2017 where the Freedom Party (PVV) is projected to win 36 seats in the 150 seat parliament, up from the 15 it had in the previous election four years ago. Its leader Geert Wilders was recently convicted for hate speech. In Austria, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Norbert Hofer, narrowly lost the Austrian election last year.

On Saturday, Jan. 21, about 1,000 delegates from populist right-wing parties are expected to attend a “European counter-summit” in Germany.